April 23 2012: Alberta Provincial Election

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by SebC

I agree that Keynesian economics is often poorly executed, but I don't think that means we shouldn't try. Especially when fiscal conservatism carries its own problems.

Perfect example is the South Hospital (and moreso, the Foothills/Rockyview Hospital expansions). Blowing up Calgary General and selling Holy Cross was supposed to be efficient use of resources. Instead, we've had to build capacity to make up for what the "fiscal conservatives" took away.

Not just often poorly executed, pretty much always poorly executed on a long term basis. I think it's only place is in credit collapse driven recessions, where ultimately money supply substitutes shrink and essentially cause deflation if not rectified with quantitative easing and government spending. It's best used as one tool in a toolbox of many different appraches to the economy than as an overall economic philosophy.

We just went through with one of these extraordinary events which is why everyone and their dog's declaring Chicago school economics dead and the new kaynsians the wave of the future. Not true, we're going to go through a decade of cleaning up soverign balance sheets and anemic economic growth due to the spending and easing done to avert disaster in 2008 (overall avoiding collapse probably was still well worth it). The problems will come when future recessions hit, which will be more traditional recessions casused by overproduction. The Kaynsians will only see it coming after it arrives, will release their spending on an already bottoming-out economy and will actually contribute to inflation on the upswing recovery. The mechanism of government spending is so slow and reactionary that trying to tinker with garden variety recessions is really just pissing away money.

Using Government spending as a means to fuel and stimulate economic growth is like eating at McDonalds. If you're at risk of starving to death it's necessary. If you've got other options, you're body's better not going there.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

The problems will come when future recessions hit, which will be more traditional recessions casused by overproduction. The Kaynsians will only see it coming after it arrives, will release their spending on an already bottoming-out economy and will actually contribute to inflation on the upswing recovery. The mechanism of government spending is so slow and reactionary that trying to tinker with garden variety recessions is really just pissing away money.

Well, even if your timing is a bit off, that's still better than being deliberately cyclical with your spending - which pisses even more money away because you ending building things when they cost the most.

Governments should get through the design phases on projects early so that they can have them shovel-ready and decrease their reaction times.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

What a strange way to quantify spending. Why should we pay double for the same services just because the price of oil went up?

Have more = Spend more....?

There's nothing at all strange about benchmarking spending as a percentage of GDP. It is, in fact, arguably the best measure to compare how much different governments are spending in real dollars. You will also find that debt is frequently measured as a percentage of GDP as well.

And it's not an issue of have more = spend more. When the economy is hot, you get inflation, which means the cost of labour and goods also increases. So you have to spend more just to provide the same level if service. This is seriously like Economics 101 type knowledge. Do you think it costs the same to build a highway, school, or hospital in Alberta as it does in PEI? If not, can you explain why?

[Senator Clay Davis]

If we have the best education system in Canada, imagine how strong our economy could be if we had a better dropout rate.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

If we have the best education system in Canada, imagine how strong our economy could be if we had a better dropout rate.

You have this completely backwards.

Our strong economy is why we have a "bad" dropout rate, (which also improves the performance of our average student who stays in school ).

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Slava

There is no pretending. The reality is that the numbers don't work; point blank. Feel free to pull out a calculator and show how they possibly could.

The bottomline for that CCS figure is that the Wildrose is relying on that being $2B. Its not, and as a result of that and other tax credit promises and spending hikes that they've commited to the numbers don't work.

If their fairytale figures won't work today, how will it possibly work once they get into office and have the actual figures to deal with?

I do think its funny though that now you (and you alone btw) are now saying that the figure for CCS is only $1.5B. Eventually you can get that figure down to where everyone else sees it, which is closer to $500-$800M. You'll note that I gave them $800M as savings and they were still out by about $200M....but I'm sure that you read that and just failed to mention it here.

You are crying wolf about your own projections proving wildrose projections wrong, but you have no proof one way or another. You use the other parties as 'proof' but they don't have anything but a guess as well. Three guesses doesn't mean a better guess.

We also know the Liberal and PC budgets are based upon faulty projections, but you fail to equivocate those.

There's no way to satisfy you, but claiming one parties assumptions are real and anothers aren't is just silly.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

If we have the best education system in Canada, imagine how strong our economy could be if we had a better dropout rate.

The drop out rates in other provinces would be just as poor if they had job potentials where a 18 year old un educated kid can go and make insane money very quickly in their main sectors.

Alberta is fairly unique in that area because of the Oil patch.

No other province has an entry level position in their key industry that pays 6 figures very quickly if you work hard, except for B.C. if you wanna be a international drug mule.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by SebC

You have this completely backwards.

Our strong economy is why we have a "bad" dropout rate, (which also improves the performance of our average student who stays in school ).

I actually never thought of it that why. More dropouts, fewer students, remaining students do better. Pretty smart thinking there.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The drop out rates in other provinces would be just as poor if they had job potentials where a 18 year old un educated kid can go and make insane money very quickly in their main sectors.

Alberta is fairly unique in that area because of the Oil patch.

No other province has an entry level position in their key industry that pays 6 figures very quickly if you work hard, except for B.C. if you wanna be a international drug mule.

Had to lol at the drug mule quote. I know how the oil patch jobs are unique, but they aren't really "forever" jobs if you catch my drift. No one does it forever, so I figure having a HS diploma to fall back on is a good appraoch. But SebCs point is very valid. More students might make for a worse system.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

There's nothing at all strange about benchmarking spending as a percentage of GDP. It is, in fact, arguably the best measure to compare how much different governments are spending in real dollars. You will also find that debt is frequently measured as a percentage of GDP as well.

And it's not an issue of have more = spend more. When the economy is hot, you get inflation, which means the cost of labour and goods also increases. So you have to spend more just to provide the same level if service. This is seriously like Economics 101 type knowledge. Do you think it costs the same to build a highway, school, or hospital in Alberta as it does in PEI? If not, can you explain why?

Well, inflation is easy to measure, and is not entirely reflective of GDP growth, especially in a commodity driven economy like Alberta. We know that spending growth has far outpaced both population growth and inflation in Alberta since the 1990's.

And comparing PEI to Alberta is kind of silly. But why wouldn't we want to compare to BC and Saskatchewan? They face the same inflationary pressures that we do. Can you explain why it costs Alberta twice as much to administer farmland as Saskatchewan, even though they have double the amount of farmland? Can you explain why Alberta has to pay double to build the same highway as BC, when their inflation is exactly the same as here?

Furthermore, can you explain why the government of Canada (and pretty much every government in the world) chooses to use a per capita spending calculation instead of a percentage of GDP when comparing provincial spending?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Furthermore, can you explain why the government of Canada (and pretty much every government in the world) chooses to use a per capita spending calculation instead of a percentage of GDP when comparing provincial spending?

That one is easy... to pander to Quebec of course! Equalization formulas SHOULD account for higher costs of delivery in more prosperous provinces. Should, but don't. That's why we subsidize Quebec, but they're the ones who can afford to have publically funded daycare.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by SebC

Well, even if your timing is a bit off, that's still better than being deliberately cyclical with your spending - which pisses even more money away because you ending building things when they cost the most.

Governments should get through the design phases on projects early so that they can have them shovel-ready and decrease their reaction times.

The problem with 'Shovel-ready' is that it's not the project development process that's the lag that makes Kaynsian policies ineffective in practice but rather the time it takes to make the identification of the need to unleash the projects that's ultimately the problem and it really has no solution.

I think overall you're arguing for something that isn't necessarily an economic philosophy, but rather a budgetary philosophy that takes a longer term view of things. If Klein in the 90s thought to look ahead a decade in the future where there would inevitably be more Albertans that need Health care, then maybe hospitals wouldn't have been closed down and maybe we would have floated a few more bonds to keep up with the maintainence of said hospitals. That's not really ideology driven as much as it's reactionary to the short term. That might not even be a partisan or even an intelligence arguement since I think a large reason for this is due to election cycles.

[SebC]

I'm just gonna leave this here.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Lol Ron Leech. You're uh, kind of uh, a uh, biggot uh

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by SebC

I'm just gonna leave this here.

Was this today? Oh my. Glad he's not in my riding.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I think overall you're arguing for something that isn't necessarily an economic philosophy, but rather a budgetary philosophy that takes a longer term view of things. If Klein in the 90s thought to look ahead a decade in the future where there would inevitably be more Albertans that need Health care, then maybe hospitals wouldn't have been closed down and maybe we would have floated a few more bonds to keep up with the maintainence of said hospitals. That's not really ideology driven as much as it's reactionary to the short term. That might not even be a partisan or even an intelligence arguement since I think a large reason for this is due to election cycles.

Fiscal conservatism emphasizes a short-term view. Fiscal conservatives dislike surpluses (government is taking too much of their money) about as much as they dislike deficits (government is spending too much money). Balanced budget legislation and surplus dividends, for example, basically institutionalize what you are characterizing as reactionary.

(If that kind of policy is caused by the election cycle, that seems to imply that fiscal conservatives are more Machiavellian than liberal/Keynesians - which, in the case of the Calgary school fiscal conservatives at least, seems to fit observed data! )

[Bigtime]

Hahaha! This could go "Barb Higgins" on them at this rate.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Was this today? Oh my. Glad he's not in my riding.

I think so, it's from a radio interview. Should show up on the newspaper websites soon enough, I think.

[Bigtime]

It's blowing up on twitter right now.

[burn_this_city]

As I figured when the election just started, the WR back benchers will be their undoing. Honestly where do they find these muppets? You can't tell me they're the best candidates available.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

As I figured when the election just started, the WR back benchers will be their undoing. Honestly where do they find these muppets? You can't tell me they're the best candidates available.

And yet... there's Rob Anders.